The night is come.  Like to the day,
  Depart not thou, great God, away. 
  Let not my sins, black as the night,
  Eclipse the lustre of thy light. 
  Keep still in my horizon, for to me
  The sun makes not the day but thee. 
  Thou whose nature cannot sleep,
  On my temples sentry keep;
  Guard me ’gainst those watchful foes
  Whose eyes are open while mine close. 
  Let no dreams my head infest
  But such as Jacob’s temples blest. 
  While I do rest, my soul advance;
  Make my sleep a holy trance,
  That I may, my rest being wroughtt
  Awake into some holy thought,
  And with as active vigour run
  My course as doth the nimble sun. 
  Sleep is a death:  O make me try
  By sleeping what it is to die,
  And as gently lay my head
  On my grave, as now my bed. 
  Howe’er I rest, great God, let me
  Awake again at least with thee. 
  And thus assured, behold I lie
  Securely, or to wake or die. 
  These are my drowsy days:  in vain
  I do now wake to sleep again: 
  O come that hour when I shall never
  Sleep again, but wake for ever.

“This is the dormitive I take to bedward.  I need no other laudanum than this to make me sleep; after which I close mine eyes in security, content to take my leave of the sun, and sleep unto the resurrection.”

Jeremy Taylor, born in 1613, was the most poetic of English prose-writers:  if he had written verse equal to his prose, he would have had a lofty place amongst poets as well as amongst preachers.  Taking the opposite side from Milton, than whom he was five years younger, he was, like him, conscientious and consistent, suffering while Milton’s cause prospered, and advanced to one of the bishoprics hated of Milton’s soul when the scales of England’s politics turned in the other direction.  Such men, however, are divided only by their intellects.  When men say, “I must or I must not, for it is right or it is not right,” then are they in reality so bound together, even should they not acknowledge it themselves, that no opposing opinions, no conflicting theories concerning what is or is not right, can really part them.  It was not wonderful that a mind like that of Jeremy Taylor, best fitted for worshipping the beauty of holiness, should mourn over the disrupted order of his church, or that a mind like Milton’s, best fitted for the law of life, should demand that every part of that order which had ceased to vibrate responsive to every throb of the eternal heart of truth, should fall into the ruin which its death had preceded.  The church was hardly dealt with, but the rulers of the church have to bear the blame.